Sunday 27 December 2020

Brexitwatch: Write to Labour again!

Disappointing to have had no reply to my email to Sir Keir Starmer (who happens to be my MP) urging Labour to vote against any Tory Brexit that fails to fully satisfy Labour's 6 tests. (see my post of December 6.)

So I'm having another go - see below. If you don't want Labour to back a Tory Brexit and be disqualified from complaining about its damaging effects, you should write to Sir Keir and your Labour MP if you have one.

Dear Sir Keir, hope you had a good Christmas. I am disappointed not to have received a reply to my email of 6 December (see below) particularly as I keep reading that you are going to instruct Labour MPs to support Boris Johnson's dreadful Brexit 'deal'. 

Every day, new details emerge of how it will damage people's lives, but if Labour votes for it, you will be disqualified from criticising its effects. Imagine the scene :

'He used to be Captain Hindsight, Mr Speaker. Now he's been demoted to Sgt Turncoat! Just a few days ago, he and the party opposite voted for our historic agreement with the EU. Now they're against it! I know he's a lawyer, who changes his brief as often as he changes his briefs, Mr Speaker, but he's no leader. Britain needs leadership, and the party opposite have shown once again that they're shallow, unprincipled opportunists, who have nothing to offer our country.'

In 2018, you promised me Labour would vote against any 'deal' that did not satisfy all its six tests. This one comes nowhere near. You should keep you promise and urge Labour MPs to vote 'no' to Johnson's deal.

Yours,

John Withingon

Wednesday 23 December 2020

Brexitwatch: WORLD EXCLUSIVE! that historic Johnson-Macron phone call.


 'Bonjour Emmanuel, j'ai un peu de difficulte, Brexit-wise, avec les tete-bangeurs de l'ERG.'

'Very good, mon ami, but let's parler anglais. You'll find it easier.'

'Right, well, look, You know that I know as well as you know that Brexit is a merde-show, and that no-deal is even merder. But if I do a deal, those ERG-ers are going to come looking for my guts pour faire les garters.'

'Ne t'inquiete pas. I have an idea. We give them a petite saveur.'

'Of what, French cooking? I can't see how that'll work. Still, I suppose anything's worth a try. But no garlic.'

'Non! Non! A petite saveur of no-deal!'

'You mean confront them with reality! Mmmm, never thought of that, but how?'

'Well. This new variety of the Covid virus that is making you British get your culotte un peu twiste par le present. What if I were to use that as an occasion pour fermer the border. Proteger la France! Take back control, as you might say.'

'Mmmmm, yes. Lorries grind to a halt, park on every verge and pavement in Kent, village gardens turned to public toilets, impenetrable tailbacks miles long! Any Brits not driven mad by Brexit might start wondering if the ERG-ers are barmy!'

'And the opposition to a deal va disparaitre dans les airs.'

 'Vanish into thin air! Like Brexit promises the morning after the referendum. Brilliant! Why hadn't I thought of that?'

'Do you want me to answer that question'

'Er, no. Tu m'as sauvee la vie! Ferme la porte, et les ports, of course. Merci, Emmanuel.'

'Je t'en prie. Bye, bye no-deal. Hello surrender, er, pardon, world-beating agreement. Au revoir.'

Monday 14 December 2020

Brexitwatch: the last days of cake-and-eat-it?


I explained in my last blog (12 December) how Brexit is actually quite simple, and the consequences that flow from that for the UK are simple too.

Once we decided to leave, we could try to stay close to the EU, which would mean obeying most of its rules. Or we could have a more distant relationship which would make us poorer.

Boris Johnson and the Conservatives did not find this a very attractive choice, and have tried to shirk it for the last three and a half years by claiming there was some kind of magic have-our-cake-and-eat-it solution.

Johnson’s dishonesty, short-termism and general fecklessness has now left him painted into a very fight corner where the choice is between a rotten deal that makes trade with the EU a lot more difficult and the UK a lot poorer, and no-deal which makes trade even more difficult and the UK even poorer.

(Theresa May’s deal would have made us about 3% worse off than remaining; Boris Johnson’s deal (if he could get it accepted by the EU) would make us about 4% poorer, while no-deal would carry an eye-watering 8% penalty.)

He was supposed to finally take a decision between these unpalatable options yesterday, but once again he bottled it. But the decision and the abandonment of cake-and-eat-it can’t be put off beyond 31 December, unless Johnson takes another unpalatable action: seeking the extension to transition that he said would never happen ‘in any circumstances’, and which would enrage the Brexit fanatics who maintain him in power.

  

Saturday 12 December 2020

Brexitwatch: understanding the 'negotiations'


 'Miss! The EU's being mean to us!' Of all the Brexit bleats, is this the most pathetic, and the most demeaning for Britain?

For a start according to Brexiters, the EU can't be mean to us. 'We hold all the cards, they need us more than we need them, the German carmakers will make the EU give in,' and all the other Brexit lies you know and hate.

Unless you don't want to understand, Brexit is actually pretty simple:

The EU didn't throw us out. We, foolishly in my view, left.

The EU doesn't owe us a trade deal or anything else.

If the EU believes a deal with us is in its interest, we get one.

If it doesn't, we don't. 

The EU gets to decide what's in its interest, not us.

That was always the way it was going to be. Isn't it weird how those Brexiters who are most fanatical about standing up for what they claim to be the UK's interests in the 'negotiations' are the most outraged when the EU stands up for its interests?

Wednesday 9 December 2020

Brexitwatch: it's time Brexiters respected the referendum result


As a Remainer, I got plenty of abuse for allegedly refusing to 'respect' the result of the 2016 referendum. Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that the referendum was advisory not binding, that it had a gerrymandered electorate, that it was won by lying, cheating and possibly Russian interference.

What I wonder is why Brexiters aren't required to respect the referendum result? During the referendum campaign, they promised that 

we would stay in the Single Market 

we would be richer, with more money to spend on the NHS 

we would not in any circumstances leave without a deal 

we would get to vote on any proposed deal before we committed to leaving

there would be no border between Northern Ireland and the UK

there would be no disruption to trade

we would have a whole stack of new trade deals to start the day we left the EU etc, etc

With just 14 working days to the end of transition, we still have no idea whether we will get a deal or not. What we do know is that any deal we get will bear no resemblance to what the Leavers promised. The referendum was won by the deal the Leavers promised, not the lousy deal or no deal we are being offered today.

I want the referendum result to be honoured. I want delivery of the Brexit that was promised. If that can't be delivered, there is no justification for leaving the EU.

 

Sunday 6 December 2020

Brexitwatch: write to Labour

My MP happens to be the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer. Before the last election, he gave me a promise that Labour would vote AGAINST any Brexit deal that did not satisfy Labour's '6 tests'.

On 29 June 2018 at 22:55 STARMER, Keir wrote:

Sorry for the delay, John.

Yes, all six tests must be satisfied.

Otherwise, we vote against.
Best wishes, Keir 

The 6 tests can be found here. https://labourlist.org/2017/03/keir-starmer-labour-has-six-tests-for-brexit-if-theyre-not-met-we-wont-back-the-final-deal-in-parliament/

There are few certainties about Brexit, but two things we can be sure of are that any deal Boris Johnson achieves will bear no resemblance to what he promised while he was conning people into voting Leave and that it will not meet the 6 tests - especially test 2: 'Does it deliver the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union?'

Any deal Johnson agrees will seriously damage our country. It would be an act of monumental folly by Labour to support such a deal, and would disqualify the party from protesting at any of the many damaging consequences that would flow from it.

So I have written to Keir Starmer again (see below). If you agree with me, write to Keir Starmer. If you have a Labour MP, write to them too.

Dear Sir Keir,

I hope that you and your loved ones are well. 

You may remember that before the last election, you gave me an assurance (see below) that Labour would vote against any Brexit deal that did not meet ALL the party's six tests.

I am sorry to have to ask you to repeat the promise, but I keep reading disturbing reports that Labour plans to vote in favour of Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, should he reach one. 

To put it mildly, it seems extremely unlikely that any deal he makes will satisfy the six tests, so can I have your assurance that Labour will not renege on its promise?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Tuesday 1 December 2020

Brexitwatch: 'My indecision is final.' Will Boris Johnson's dithering wreck the UK?


Boris Johnson has painted himself into a corner that allows only two unpalatable choices: accept a Brexit deal that breaks virtually every promise made by the Leave campaign or allow a catastrophic 'no deal' which could have any number of adverse effects including denying people the medicines they need to stay alive. (See my posts of Sept 27 and Oct 2).

It is a measure of how Johnson has been paralysed by this dilemma that his government has made no progress since I wrote about it two months ago, and now there is less than a month, and a month interrupted by Christmas holidays, before the transition period ends, and the UK has to face all the consequences of Brexit for the first time.

Now even the right wing Brexit fanatic newspapers are full of scare stories about how Brits who own holiday homes in Europe will be limited about how long they can spend there, how they'll face bigger bills, how insurance policies and driving licences aren't going to be valid anymore, how fishermen might 'take back control' of our waters but won't be able to sell their fish, how farmers will be bankrupted, how European freight companies will decide carrying goods to the UK is just too much hassle, etc., etc.

Of course, this has all been known about for years, but the right wing press had suppressed the stories, or derided them as 'Project Fear', hoping something would turn up. Maybe those German carmakers would finally ride to our rescue?

Johnson's inability to take tough decisions was notorious when he was Mayor of London. Now, faced with a much more crucial decision, he seems to be stuck in the Micawber position, desperately hoping that something will save him from having to choose between a rotten deal and no deal. It's the same approach he adopted with Covid - taking every decision too late. A failure for which many paid with their lives.

What price will the UK pay for his inability to take a decision over Brexit?


Thursday 26 November 2020

Who let that thing out!? My new book 'Assassins' Deeds'

 


Out today. My new book Assassins’ Deeds. A history of assassination from Ancient Egypt to the present day. It does what it says on the cover.

Assassins’ Deeds identifies the earliest assassination in history so far as I can tell. An Egyptian pharaoh murdered about 4,300 years ago by his bodyguards. Then there is Britain’s first assassination in 293 AD – of Marcus Carausius, the self-styled ‘Emperor of Britain’, who was hired by the Romans to protect the south-east coast of England from Saxon raids, but was more interested in grabbing loot from the raiders than protecting the local residents.

I analysed 266 assassinations from ancient Egypt to the present day, and discovered the ace sniper of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal is a rarity. Most assassinations are up close and personal, with only 19 performed at a distance. Until the nineteenth century, stabbing was the favourite method, but even when firearms took over, it was usually the handgun at close quarters rather than the sniper’s rifle.

The book covers some of history’s weirdest assassinations – the king of Scotland killed by a booby-trapped statuette, the Swiss military leader hacked to death by a man disguised as a bear, and the Austrian empress murdered with a customised needle so fine the victim did not even realise she had been stabbed. She could count herself particularly unlucky as her assassin, an Italian anarchist, had been hoping to murder someone else, and she was a late substitute.

Fate moved in mysterious ways for some assassins too. An Italian nationalist was sentenced to the guillotine for a failed assassination attempt on the French emperor Napoleon III, but the emperor had a lot of sympathy for the would-be assassin’s cause of unifying Italy, and reprieved him at the last minute. He was sent to Devil’s Island for life, but escaped to the United States and went on to fight in and survive Custer’s Last Stand.

Then there is the story of King Zog of Albania, probably the only monarch to survive an assassination attempt by opening fire on the men who attacked him (as he was leaving the opera in Vienna).

Assassins Deeds’  also tells the story of history’s most famous assassinations – Julius Caesar, Thomas Becket, the French revolutionary Marat, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, etc., coming right up to the present day with the murder of Kim Jong-nam, renegade brother of the North Korean dictator, whose killers thought they were taking part in a reality tv show.

Assassins’ Deeds. A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day by John Withington is published by Reaktion Books, price £18.

http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143515

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Assassins-Deeds-History-Assassination-Ancient/dp/1789143519

 

 

Saturday 14 November 2020

Brexitwatch: of cakes and decisions


 
Another way of saying: 'I want to have my cake and eat it' is 'I am incapable of taking a decision'. Big political decisions usually involve making painful choices. Take Covid. The harder you lock down, the more you'll limit the spread of the virus, but the more damage you'll do to the economy.

The UK was late in imposing both of its lockdowns. Was this because Boris Johnson was incapable of taking the tough decision about how you balance economic damage against saving lives? Certainly, plenty of people complain about his indecisiveness when he was Mayor of London.

Brexit involves equally painful decisions. The more distant you want to be from the EU, the more damage you do to jobs, businesses and public services, and the greater the danger that you will break up the UK.

Johnson still seems not to have progressed from cakeism. He's still telling the dwindling band of people who believe him that we can have the benefits of EU membership without the responsibilities. The UK has tried demanding this for the last four years without success, but with perhaps just a week left to secure a deal, Johnson seems to have no fresh ideas.

Even if authoritarian nihilist Dominic Cummings has really departed, it will make the central decision no easier. What does the UK want: more distant and poorer, or closer and better off? With time running out, if Johnson continues to prevaricate, we will end up with no decision. And that will mean no deal. And that will mean we won't be able to have our cake or eat it.


Tuesday 20 October 2020

Brexitwatch: Kent's Brexit bogs - is Boris Johnson planning his greatest double cross?


There's a story doing the rounds that the UK could rejoin the EU in short order under Article 49. I personally do not give it a lot of credence. Nor do I think we should arrogantly assume that other EU members would want us back after the way we've behaved over the last four years.

Still, it does make you wonder. As I've noted many times, anything you say about Boris Johnson has to be highly speculative because you can't believe a word he says. 

So why is Johnson's government building 'Farage Garages' all over the place to accommodate lorry drivers stranded by Brexit, and why is Kent being turned into a public toilet that you'll need a passport to get in and out of?

Is this just the inevitable result of a no-deal Brexit or whatever lousy bare bones deal Johnson manages to do?

Or is it to ram home to the Brexiters what a disaster leaving the EU is going to be (Kent voted 59% for Brexit in the referendum), and to soften them up for an eventual application to rejoin or at least to agree a relationship that keeps us in the Single Market and the Customs Union? After all, it's quite clear that Johnson knows perfectly well that Brexit is a thoroughly foolish idea for the UK, however much it may have advanced him personally.

I don't believe this is Johnson's game, and I wouldn't put any money on it, but he knows that if he is not to go down in history as the UK's worst ever (and possibly last) prime minister, then at some point he needs to pivot away from disaster.

Thursday 8 October 2020

Brexitwatch: The Level Playing Field Mystery

'Watson. As you know, at the root of the art of detection is observation.'

'Of course, Holmes.'

'So why did I not observe it? Did I not follow the Brexit referendum campaign as closely as any man?'

'You did, Holmes.'

'So why did I not see the Level Playing Field, which we are now being told is the reason we cannot reach agreement with the European Union?'

'Perhaps because it was never there? Perhaps because "We need to leave the EU so we can hand out shedloads of hard-earned taxpayers' cash to 'businesses' run by mates of Dominic Cummings" might not have been an effective slogan?'

'And particularly not on the side of a bus! Capital, Watson!'

'But Holmes do you think the Conservatives had to conceal the fact that they wanted to use your money and mine, and the admirable Mrs Hudson's, to prop up unviable businesses because they have always said that lame ducks must go to the wall, that you can't buck the market. Indeed, wasn't Johnson saying the other day that the private sector always knows better than the state?'

'Though Cummings thinks he knows better than everyone. Watson, you excel yourself.  But there is another hypothesis, or indeed several.' The great detective paused to take a deep draught from his pipe. 'Suppose Johnson knew nothing of any of this during the referendum campaign? Suppose Cummings concealed it from him? Or suppose Cummings himself did not know about it, and that the idea came to him only after he watched 'Dragon's Den', saw the dragons, and thought:"I'd like to do that." Or suppose Cummings could see there was a danger of the EU and the UK reaching a sensible agreement, and decided that must be stopped at all costs, and that the Level Playing Field was just a useful pretext?'

'So what's the answer, Holmes?'

'That, Watson, is the mystery, but I wager the solution will bring no man any good.'




Friday 2 October 2020

Brexitwatch: why Boris Johnson may go for 'no deal'


On 27 September, I put the case for why Boris Johnson may cave in and make a deal with the EU. Today I look at why he may be forced to settle for 'no deal'.

I was watching a clip from Johnson campaigning before the 2016 Brexit referendum. In the space of about 50 seconds, he promised: 1 Brexit would be 'win-win'. 2. There would be no tariffs. 3. There would be no trade barriers. 4. The City of London would continue to have the same access it has to now to the EU.

No deal that Johnson can achieve could possibly fulfil even these promises. To say nothing of all the others that were made - that we could have our cake and eat it, we could enjoy all the benefits of EU membership without any of the responsibilities, that it would make the UK better off, provide more money for the NHS etc, etc.

So the danger of a deal for Johnson is that it will be measured against the promises he and his acolytes made. And, therefore, perhaps the safest thing is to have 'no deal' and try to put the blame on the EU.

Certainly Johnson's government has been working very hard at that. The UK is reneging on treaties and breaking international law - that's the EU's fault. The UK's doctrinaire refusal to compromise means no progress is being made - that's the EU's fault, etc, etc.

So here is one reason why Johnson may feel 'no deal' is his safest option, and there are others which I will examine in the coming days - always remembering the health warning: because you cannot believe a word Johnson says, it is very hard to predict what he will do. 

Sunday 27 September 2020

Brexitwatch: Boris Johnson - deal or no deal?


Sam Goldwyn warned: 'Never make predictions, especially about the future', and making predictions about Boris Johnson is especially hazardous because you can't believe a word he says (see my post of 5 January).

According to the crankish game theories of Johnson, or perhaps more important - Cummings, the UK will get a good deal only if the EU believes it is serious about 'walking away' from negotiations and settling for 'no deal'. (Though the consequences of no deal are now so widely recognised to be disastrous that Johnson-Cummings have had to try to rebadge it as an 'Australia-type' deal.)

There is no evidence that the EU are in the slightest degree impressed by this nonsense, but plenty that it keeps the more fanatically anti-EU element among Johnson-Cummings' supporters happy.

Nye Bevan asked: 'Why look in the crystal ball, when you can read the book?' And we have already seen Johnson-Cummings with their backs against the wall during the negotiations. They also threatened to walk away during the Withdrawal Agreement talks, but in the end they signed up to whatever the EU demanded, including things like a border in the Irish Sea that Theresa May had rejected. They and their nodding dogs then claimed this was a great victory.

Johnson-Cummings' attempt to renege on that agreement may mean that an even more humiliating climbdown will be required to get a deal on the future relationship, as the EU is probably unlikely to take much on trust from now on. But with a mendacious right-wing press still highly compliant on Brexit, if not on Covid, Johnson may still be calculating that he can repeat his earlier trick: surrender, then claim victory, while his media accomplices play along.

So, if I was forced to predict an outcome, it would be this one, though I wouldn't bet much on it. I'll be examining other possibilities over the coming weeks.

Sunday 20 September 2020

Brexitwatch: this wasn't meant to happen Part 4: inside DUP headquarters

When the Good Friday Agreement was signed, people said: 'the Republicans are too clever to admit they've lost, and the Loyalists are too stupid to realise they've won'. This may appear to have been confirmed by the DUP's apparently foolish decision to support Brexit, which has done more damage to the Union in 4 years than the IRA managed in 30. Fortunately, I can reveal that all this is scurrilous nonsense thanks to a recording secretly made at DUP headquarters of a wide-ranging 58 second long debate on the stance the party should take in the Brexit referendum.

'Right. Next business. EU referendum. Leave or Remain?'

'How many Papists are there in the EU?'

'Er, millions, tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions.'

'Hmm. What are the Fenians going to do?'

'Sinn Fein? Oh. They're backing Remain.'

'Right. We back Leave.'

'Hang on, though under the GFA....

'GFA?'

'Good Friday Agreement.'

'Oh yes. I've got another name for it. Great Fuc....' 

[Loudly and hastily]. 'Yes thank you. Well the Good Friday Agreement only works if both Northern Ireland and the Republic are in the EU.....'

[Interrupts] So what are they saying on the Shankill?

'They tend to back Leave.'

'So Leave it is. Next business.'

'But hang on. If we leave the EU and "take back control of our borders", there'll have to be a border in Ireland between the UK and the EU. Now we can't have a land border because that would break the GFA, so that means a border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.'

'So?'

'That means the end of the Union! A de facto United Ireland.'

'No it won't.'

'What do you mean: "it won't".'

'It won't, because Leave won't win in a month of Sundays. Remain'll win, but we'll get credit for giving the Papist EU a kicking. Leave it is. Next business.'



Sunday 13 September 2020

Brexitwatch: this wasn't meant to happen! Part 3 - Boris Johnson's 115th Dream


Boris and Carrie are sitting watching television. Now read on:

 ‘Oh great! Season 4 of ‘The Crown’!’

‘Oh yes. World-beating! But wait a minute, Carrie. That caption says May 3, 2021. None of this has happened yet. How can they know about it?’

‘Shh. I’m trying to watch the programme.’

‘Oh God! I don’t look like that. Surely they could have found somebody better looking! And he’s nearly bald!  Where’s the phone. I’m going to get on to that new head honcho we put in – Davey Somebody – and make him take this off.’

 ‘Boris! It’s not the BBC, it’s Netflix. Now shut up and listen.’

‘Oh. I was expecting to see the Queen.’

A hint of a mirthless smile flickers beneath an impressive moustache. ‘I’m afraid Her Majesty is otherwise engaged. She asked me to see you on her behalf.’

‘Hold on!  I recognise you. You’re Tommy Lascelles. You were in the last series or the one before. You can’t see me, because you’re dead.’

Unlike his interlocutor, the urbane functionary is not in the least nonplussed. ‘Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia, Mr Johnson. It sometimes…….exaggerates.’

‘You mean “prime minister”’

‘Mr Johnson.’ The mirthless smile was back.

‘Well, the point is that once parliament has passed this ‘Unilateral Cancellation of EU Trade Agreement Bill’, I’ll need HMQ to give the Royal Assent pronto, so we can implement the populi voluntatem without delay and all that.’

‘And, of course, if you ask Her Majesty to take that action, she will have to comply.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Which is precisely why you will not do it.’

‘What do you mean, Lascelles? You can’t obstruct the will of the people.’

‘I have here a few papers for your perusal.’ (The phrase: ‘Restricted. Top Secret. Not for Fatman’s eyes’ are fleetingly visible on one.)

‘Oh. I’ll take them back to number 10. Dom reads that kind of stuff for me.’

‘The papers will not be leaving this room, and, Mr Cummings is (Lascelles consults his watch) as of now, ‘a guest of Her Majesty’, as I think they say in the films. Apparently something about his time in Russia?’

‘There’s no point trying to frighten me about leaking stuff to the press. The ephemerides are all in my pocket and the BBC daren’t sneeze without my say so.’

The immaculately turned out royal servant produces a newspaper and eases it across the table. ‘If the papers I showed you a moment ago are too voluminous, perhaps you might cast your eye over this?’

“‘Bang Up Boris’ call. Gove poised for No 10.” What’s this?

‘The front page of tomorrow morning’s (Lascelles raises his eyebrows and utters the next word as though wiping something nasty off the sole of his Berluti Oxford) Sun. I managed to persuade them to tone it down from ‘string up’ to ‘bang up’.’

‘That bastard Gove! It’s a fake, Rupert would never do this to me.’

‘If you examine the papers I suggested you should read, you will see that some (the pause is followed by the same tone of voice used for ‘Sun’) gentlemen who had hoped to profit from certain actions of yours felt they had not received the degree of forewarning you promised, and so have not profited as much as they had anticipated.’

‘Can I get my mobile?’

‘As you know, these audiences are strictly mobile-free.’

‘Then I need to get back to Number 10 right now.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Some kind of security alert. The police say there’s a suspected criminal in the building. However (it’s that mirthless smile again) should you wish to avail yourself of a generous offer from President Putin, you may leave now and take asylum in Krasnoyarsk.’

‘What the hell is that?’

‘A place in Siberia. The president has provided special transport from here to the airport, and your flight leaves in a couple of hours. Aeroflot. I’m afraid he couldn’t get business class.’

‘You can’t do this. I’m the prime minister! I’m the prime minister!’

‘Oh Boris, do shut up! That’s the third time this week. Anyway it’s eleven o’ clock. Time for even you to get up. What are these dreams you keep having? Is it always the same one?

Friday 11 September 2020

Brexitwatch: Now Johnson is bragging about breaking the law - time to write to the Queen again


Just over a year ago, I wrote to the Queen to warn her of the danger of becoming an accomplice in Boris Johnson's illegal suspension of parliament (see my post of 30 August 2019, and 13 September 2019 for the Queen's reply).

It is likely that very soon now, the Queen will be asked to approve the UK Internal Market Bill, which by the government's own admission ('boast' may be a more accurate word) reneges on the Withdrawal Agreement Johnson signed with the EU, and support for which was the key policy that won him a general election just ten months ago, and breaks international law. Even prominent Brexiters like Lord (Michael) Howard and Lord (Norman) Lamont are unable to stomach this. 

So I have written to the Queen again, suggesting that her previous contention that 'I have to do whatever the prime minister tells me' is inadequate in a situation in which she is being asked to approve the UK breaking the law. Here is my letter:

Your Majesty,

 A year ago, I wrote to you to warn you of the dangers of simply following the orders of your prime minister. The result of following those orders was that you became an accomplice in an illegal prorogation of parliament. Now very soon, it is highly likely that your prime minister will instruct you to endorse the UK government breaking international law.

 I am sorry this crisis should have come upon when you are in your 90s and when you have given your country a long lifetime of devoted service, but you are The Queen.

 Unlike the prorogation, which Mr Johnson’s government at least pretended they believed was legal, with the repudiation of the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, your government is actually boasting that it is breaking the law.

 This agreement you will remember was freely agreed to by the prime minister, was approved by Conservative MPs, who refused to allow parliament time to scrutinise it properly, and then became the centrepiece of the Conservative Party’s successful campaign in a general election just ten months ago.

 You very kindly got your deputy correspondence co-ordinator to reply on your behalf to my previous letter, but her assertion that you must always ‘act on the advice of your ministers’ is surely inadequate when they keep telling you to do things that are illegal.

 I would humbly urge you the next time you are instructed to perform or endorse an act that may be illegal to seek your own independent legal advice. Would it not also be wise to seek the views of the leader of the opposition, of the other five living prime ministers, and of previous Lord Chancellors?  

 As I wrote in my first letter: ‘The national interest of our country, and particularly the long-term interest, such as protecting our democracy, is not the same thing as what a particular prime minister or government happens to find convenient at a particular moment. So there needs to be someone in our constitution who plays the role of standing up for the national interest, when necessary, against the prime minister or government of the day.’

 There is no one but you who can do this. These are the most dangerous times the UK has faced since World War Two. Please do not let us down.

 Yours sincerely,

 

John Withington


Thursday 10 September 2020

My new book 'Assassins' Deeds' - 'entertaining and haunting' says an expert on terrorism


Thank you to Dr Tim Wilson, Director, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), University of St Andrews, for his comments on my new book:

 ‘Like Shakespeare himself, Assassins’ Deeds offers us a stage memorably strewn with the most distinguished of corpses. ‘Bloody instructions’ (as Macbeth called them) are certainly to be found here in abundance. But there are also wise words about how often incompetence and unintended consequences derail the best laid plans. Assassination, Withington instructs us in entertaining style, is no exact science. A messy tale: and a haunting one.’

Assassins' Deeds. A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day, published by Reaktion, is out on 12 October.

http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143515&aub=John+Withington&m=2&dc=4

It delves back 4,000 years to seek out the first known assassination, then examines the famous killings - Julius Caesar, Thomas Becket, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, right up to Qasem Soleimani, while also uncovering some less well-known deeds like those of the Turkish sultan who had nineteen of his brothers strangled. 

It examines how motivation has changed, and how methods often altered surprisingly little, in spite of great technological changes. It shows how often assassinations go wrong and how many victims were surprisingly careless. Abraham Lincoln had let his bodyguard go for a drink. Finally it investigates whether assassination works.


Monday 17 August 2020

Brexitwatch: this wasn't meant to happen! Part 2

 

Meanwhile at Leave headquarters:

Ever wondered why Boris Johnson looked as though he was going to a funeral when he announced Leave’s victory in the referendum? This transcript of a conversation from shortly before the vote explains: 

‘I say, Dom. Some jumped-up jackass has just asked me whether Brexit will mean less immigration. What’s our policy?’

‘Did they want less immigration?’

‘Er. I think so.’

‘So our policy is less immigration. If they want more immigration, our policy is more immigration. If they want no immigration, our policy is no immigration. Simple enough for you?’

‘But Dom, how will we reconcile all those contradictory promises?’

‘We won’t have to, because Remain will win.’

‘Yes, of course. Er, er, Dom I’m also a bit worried about these undertakings we’ve given about leaving the EU but keeping all the advantages of remaining.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you? We LOSE. So we won’t have to keep any promises. So we can promise anything. Then after Remain wins, we wait for the fury of the Tory head-bangers who’ve been denied their beloved Brexit, to force Cameron out. Look I’ve already written your campaign speech when you go for the leadership:

“My friends, no one campaigned harder for Brexit than me, but that fight is over, and now we must all accept the democratic result that we remain in the EU. Our task now is to bring together our party and our country – Leavers and Remainers – to take us forward to the next phase of our world-beating history.” Then throw in a bit of Latin or something if you must.’

‘Fine, Dom, yes. Er, one other thing. How should I vote?’

‘For Remain like me, what do you think? But don’t tell anybody.’

Saturday 8 August 2020

Brexitwatch: this wasn't meant to happen! Part 1


When Prime Minister David Cameron gave in to the Conservative Brexit fanatics and promised to hold a referendum on EU membership if he won the General Election of 2015, he also let them do a lot of other things - e.g. gerrymander the electorate by systematically excluding millions of people who could have been expected to vote Remain.

He never bothered to think about crucial questions - such as what would happen if there was a very small majority, and/or a small turn out? What if some countries in the UK voted for Remain and others for Leave? Should the Leave campaign have to come up with a credible programme for quitting the EU or should they be allowed to be all things to all Brexiters and promise a whole pile of often contradictory things that could never be delivered?

You see none of this mattered, because Cameron knew the Tories were not going to win the election. At best, they'd be back in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and the Libdems would save him from holding the referendum.

Unfortunately, Cameron misjudged the ferocity with which his party would stab their former coalition partners in the back, and so, curses!, he won a majority. That wasn't meant to happen. 

So now he was stuck with the referendum, but still he didn't need to worry about the crazy, negligent basis on which it was being set up, because Remain was going to win. Leave was going to lose, and all but the most fanatical of the Brexiters could be put back in their box for a few more years.

To be continued

Friday 24 July 2020

Brexitwatch: how incuriosity is killing British democracy. Part 2



Oh my prophetic soul! Two and a half years ago, I warned that MPs’ fierce determination to be incurious, to resolutely avoid inquiring into important matters, was threatening to destroy democracy in the UK (see my post of 21 January 2018). This week things got worse.

Back in 2018, MPs were busily voting against making the government publish studies on the impact Brexit would have on the UK: ‘Our constituents don’t need to know how their lives are going to be messed up by leaving the EU, and we certainly don’t want to hear about it!’

Now our MPs’ determination to be irrelevant has landed a double whammy in the last few days. First they voted to deny themselves any say on future trade deals. No fewer than 326 MPs decided: ‘not the kind of thing we want to be involved with, old boy.’

Even by the catastrophically low standards of today’s House of Commons, this is mind-boggling. Why would any MP with a scintilla of concern for the national interest deny themselves this right? After all, if you think a given trade deal is good, you just vote for it, don’t you? So what are you afraid of? That the deal’s bad, and then maybe your constituents will put you under pressure to vote against it, and if you do, Dominic Cummings or the extreme right-wing tabloids will be nasty to you? ‘No, please just let me be irrelevant and have a quiet life!’

MPs also determinedly looked the other way on Russian meddling in British politics and especially the Brexit referendum. Having tolerated Boris Johnson’s suppression of the cross-party report on this for nine months, they batted scarcely an eyelid when, after considering its demand for a proper inquiry into Russian interference for at least one second, Johnson dismissed it. 

Now they’re off on their hols!

Wednesday 22 July 2020

Brexitwatch: 'MacBoris' - Shakespeare's lost tragedy



Following my unearthing of Samuel Beckett’s hitherto unknown masterpiece, Waiting for the German Carmakers, (see my post of 1 February) I now unveil an even greater scoop - a new drama by Shakespeare! MacBoris. A Tragedy (for the UK).

It is the story of a privileged, entitled, selfish, rather overweight man who has to overcome no obstacles before being installed as the leader of his party and his country. 

Owing to the constraints of copyright, I can reproduce only a few lines from the work, but they are enough to illustrate that the bard of Stratford has produced another winner. One remarkable speech comes from the mouth of Lady Morgan, a very, very minor character, who on learning MacBoris has become prime minister, soliloquises: 

'Brexit, party leader, prime minister. Thou hast it all now, as Cummings promised, and I fear thou played'st most foully for it, but I'm not going to say anything about that, because I know which side my bread's buttered.'

But perhaps the most memorable line comes from MacBoris himself.  In the final act, while he is making models of buses from cardboard boxes, he gets a visit from the ghost of his hero Churchill (or was that Pericles? Depends on the audience, I suppose.) The spirit reveals that in an opinion poll in 2030 on 'who was Britain's worst ever prime minister', MacBoris will score 100%. The hero wonders whether, even now, he can repair at least some of the terrible damage he has done to his country, but concludes it would be too much like hard work:

'I am in lies stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er'.


Sunday 12 July 2020

Living to 100 - my online talk TOMORROW!


Looking forward to talking online to the U3A in London at 1030 tomorrow about living to 100 - what's it like and which of us will survive to find out, based on my book 'Secrets of the Centenarians' (Reaktion).

Here's how the organisers have described the talk:

JULY 13: Living to 100. Who and what?  What is it like to live for a century and which of us will survive to find out? John Withington discusses why there are 90 times as many centenarians as there were 100 years ago. Why women outnumber men by about 5 to 1.  What determines who will make it to 100 and who will fall by the wayside.            And can we go on expanding human lifespan or have we reached our limit?

https://www.u3alondon.org.uk/u3a-in-london-update-11-may-2020/




Thursday 9 July 2020

Brexitwatch: MPs - you're out of excuses. Time to resume your jobs



It is the duty of MPs to act in the interests of the UK. Many, perhaps most, regarded this duty as suspended after the Brexit referendum. Though the vast majority knew leaving the EU would damage the UK, they decided to obey the result of the referendum, even though it was explicitly advisory and non-binding, and even though it was set up and conducted in a thoroughly undemocratic way.

Readers of this blog will know I disagreed profoundly with this analysis. But if you agreed with it, the referendum result committed the government to one thing only: that we should ‘leave the EU’. That was the only thing we voted on. That duty has been discharged. We left on January 31, and MPs, therefore, no longer have any excuse for ignoring the national interest.

Any version of Brexit makes us poorer than we would have been if we had stayed in the EU, but the most damaging way to leave is ‘no deal’ – without any agreement. (No doubt worried that people were beginning to realise this, Johnson and Cummings have rebadged ‘no deal’ as an ‘Australia-style deal’. Australia has no trade deal with the EU.) 

A no-deal Brexit, according to the government’s own figures, will cost us around £30bn a year. That’s equivalent to about three-quarters of what we spend on schools. How disappointing then that our MPs have shown so little interest in the Conservative government’s dilatory non-negotiations with the EU, characterised by shouting slogans designed to appeal to the worst instincts of the most extreme Brexiters.

Come on MPs! This is not good enough. You can’t go on hiding behind the referendum result. It is your duty to your country to prevent a no-deal exit and to ensure the damage from Brexit is minimised as much as it can be.

Monday 6 July 2020

Brexitwatch: Leave means disaster, say Leavers


The 'Leave Alliance' who 'make the case for leaving the EU' now realise Brexit's going to be a disaster. In a series of tweets, they say: 'These days I'm heavily sceptical of #Brexit and the mess it will surely be.'

They add: 'Any serious examination our #Brexit trade negotiations suggests the UK is playing silly b*ggers and was never sincere about a deal and we're just going through the motions to pretend we tried. The headbangers have won.'

I could hardly put it better myself! They point out that the government's plan to join the CPTPP Trans-Pacific partnership on the other side of the world instead of the EU 20 miles across the channel is a waste of time. (Surely even Dominic 'where's Dover?' Raab, our alleged Foreign Secretary, must have noticed the UK isn't very near the Pacific.)

As for a US trade deal, says the Leave Alliance, it'll be much worse than staying in the EU Single Market, and probably won't happen anyway.

Our customs systems 'aren't ready' for the end of transition, and no-deal will cause 'unsustainable customs and red tape overheads'. They conclude that it looks as though the Tories 'haven't the first idea what they're doing.'

You'll be relieved to know that sanity hasn't completely dawned in Brexitland. Even though we Remainers have been warning for the last four and a half years that Brexit is barmy, it is still apparently all our fault. The question now though is whether the Brexiters who have belatedly realised that Johnson is leading us to disaster have the guts to do anything about it.


Sunday 14 June 2020

Cummingsgate: will it be Johnson's Black Wednesday?


A recently elected Conservative party leader won a surprise victory against considerable odds in a general election, and, as a result, appeared to be in a strong position with considerable authority. But just a few months later came a crisis.

The prime minister and his government did not handle it well. They made promises they were unable to keep, and though they stayed in office for the best part of five more years, the prime minister's credibility never recovered, and his government was torn apart by internecine warfare over Europe. When the next general election came along, the Tories were comprehensively defeated.

That is the story of John Major, prime minister from 1992-7, but the first three and a half sentences at least could also have been written about Boris Johnson. The crisis that found Major wanting, was 'Black Wednesday'. The government promised to keep the UK in Europe's Exchange Rate Mechanism at all costs. But even raising interest rates 4 per cent in a day and spending billions of pounds was not enough to fight off the currency dealers who believed Major was trying to keep the pound at a higher level than the economy justified, and the UK crashed out.

Johnson's crisis has been an odder one: his insistence on hanging on to an unelected adviser who had flouted coronavirus lockdown rules. It is coalescing, of course, with a general feeling that the crisis has been handled badly: locking down too late, abandoning testing, failing to supply protective equipment to frontline workers, failing to protect care homes, etc, but the decision to protect Dominic Cummings generated a huge wave of anger, even among Conservatives.

Will the story end the same? Sam Goldwyn said: 'beware of making predictions especially about the future,' and a lot can happen in what could be four years or more before the next election. Johnson also has a much bigger parliamentary majority than Major, but it is possible that when the history of his government is written, the day he decided to defend Cummings instead of firing him may be seen as his 'Black Wednesday'.